As a new feature on Clitical I am going to be interviewing some of the most influential people in the sex world today! Charlie Glickman is one such person!
He began his career as a sex educator at Brown University in 1989. In 1996 he joined the staff of Good Vibrations as a Sex Educator-Sales Associate in the Berkeley store, and eventually became the Education Program Manager. From there he has become a force to be reckoned with in his own right and a very respected one at that. Charlie likes to deal with subjects that confuses and confound many and his workshops are in high demand.
Recently Cliess press offered me the chance to interview Charlie with regards to his latest book, The Ultimate Guide To Prostate Pleasure, which he co-authored with Aislinn Emirzian. I also reviewed the book itself and you can read that review HERE.
So what follows are the questions I choose to ask Charlie. I hope you enjoy them, and hope it give you a better sense of the man behind the book…
1:Why write a book dedicated to prostate play? My co-author, Aislinn Emirzian, was inspired to writeThe Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure when she noticed that there were several books and how-to movies about the G-spot, but almost nothing about the prostate. Since the prostate is the G-spot for men, she decided that the world was ready for it. There are more toys for prostate play than there used to be, so clearly the interest is there. Men deserve just as much information and support for their sexual pleasure as women do.
2: For those who buy and read The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure: Erotic Exploration for Men and Their Partners what can they expect to learn? We cover everything you need to know: anatomy, getting started, hygiene, solo play, partner play, massage, sex toys, pegging, prostate health, and the common concerns that many men and their partners face when exploring prostate fun. We surveyed almost 200 people, so we offer an incredible range of tips and ideas. We wanted to make prostate play easy and enjoyable, and the feedback we’ve received tells us that we did it.
3: I understand that you do workshops on prostate play, what are the questions you get asked most when you are doing workshops on prostate play? How do you answer any of those common concerns? The three biggest questions we get are: Will this hurt? Will this be messy? Will this change my sexual orientation?
The first two are technical questions and we have lots to say about both of them. We also do a lot to explain that where your nerve endings are is about your sexual pleasures, while the gender of the person you want to have sex with is about your sexual orientation. Despite what many people think, those are two different things and we don’t need to let ideas about what sex is supposed to be get in the way of creating happy sex lives.
In our workshops, we also get questions about what prostate massage feels like, or how you know when you’ve found it, or other how-to topics. Whatever the question, we give direct, honest information so people can go home and try it right away!
4: Many of us heard the term sex positive many times, what is your definition/understanding of the term? My definition of sex-positive (which I’ve written quite a bit about: http://www.charlieglickman.com/category/sex-positivity/) is that the only relevant measure of a sexual act or practice is the consent, pleasure, and well-being of the people who do it or who are affected by it. Or to put it another way, as long as everyone is happy and nobody gets hurt, anything you want to do is fine.
That definition gives us plenty of room for individual preferences and desires. It also means that if you want to have no sex, or no sex with a partner, or to be monogamous, or to have a threesome, or to have 10 partners in a week, any choice you make is fine, as long as it’s your choice and everyone is able to take care of themselves. Sex-positivity doesn’t mean you have to be kinky, or queer, or polyamorous, or anything else. It means making your own choices and respecting other people and their ability to make their own choices.
5: If there was one word that you could use to sum yourself up with, what would it be?
Well, I tried, but I couldn’t come up with one. And the folks on Facebookhad some good ones, but nothing I felt compelled to include. 🙂
I’d like to personally thank Charlie for taking time out o his busy schedule to talk with me, and for writing a book on a subject that can open a whole new world to guys and their partners…
